


Remember Me

by waywardelle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Cuddling, M/M, Season/Series 11 Spoilers, the good stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 09:52:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6234040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardelle/pseuds/waywardelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You should get some sleep,” Sam tells him, unable to leave the hunched-over, vulnerable looking body possessing the other half of his soul. “Everything is scarier in the dark.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Dean huffs, a bitter noise, kind of a laugh, mostly a scoff. He’s still facing away from Sam, head ducked down, looking at his wide hands. “You’re not. You’re not, Sam.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Theboys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theboys/gifts).



> After some heinous writers block, I'm back with this. I hope it's all right. I feel pretty writerly-fragile at the moment. A gift for Theboys (if you're not reading Black Holes and Revelations, please rectify that immediately) because she's bae.

“Sam,” is what he hears right before he drops off to sleep. Weirdly enough, it reminds him of the way Dean said his name all those nights he would scream it through the Mark of Cain dreams, the way that one syllable echoed through the hallowed, empty halls of the Bunker, making Sam feel like Dean’s one defense against the rest of the world. All the more because Dean didn’t know he was yelling out for his brother, and Sam has never asked, but he wonders all the time if Dean was yelling because he was trying to save him, or yelling his name because Dean had just realized he’d killed him.

Even though it’s nearly whispered, it has the same urgency, the same underbelly of a scream, and even though Sam knows he was about to drop into the first night of peaceful sleep in weeks, he rolls over, blinking his eyes open to let Dean know he’d heard him.

It’s strange to Sam, how sometimes Dean, at thirty-seven (just last week, Sam had given him a little slice of chocolate pie and a big hug that embarrassed them both, coughing and grunting afterwards, and Sam had grinned because it had reminded him of that moment in Grease, when Danny and Kenicke name each other their ‘second’ before the big race, hug each other tenderly, then move away combing their slicked back hair because they were So Not Gay), can look like such a lost little kid.

He does now, standing in the doorway of Sam’s room, backlit by the dim lights that never go off in their home. He’s scratching at his left ankle with one socked foot, his big toe really digging into the bone, and his arms are crossed over his chest. When he gets the itch to his satisfaction, his foot drops, but it points inward, making Dean’s bowlegs look even more obvious, with this pigeon-toed, vulnerable stance he’s got going on.

“Wass’it,” Sam mumbles, his voice hoarse. His mind might’ve instantly gone alert when he’d heard Dean, but it wasn’t a huge distress call, so his body is a little slower in waking back up. Dean doesn’t say anything, so Sam groans out his brother’s name in that annoyed-way only little brothers can do.

“I, uh. Can’t sleep,” Dean offers finally, still just standing there, looking a little lost.

Sam can’t figure out what Dean’s asking for, but his heart starts thudding in his chest anyway because he just can’t be asking for the thing Sam refuses to even ghost over in his mind, because it’s been going on six years now that they’ve even– that one night, in Detroit, before– and even longer ago than that was it a regular thing, before Ruby, before Hell, so no, Sam doesn’t think Dean’s asking for that, because Sam can’t hope that, can’t even let himself think about it.

He’s wanted to bring it up countless times, especially lately, now that things are as peaceful as they ever tend to be in their lives. No one’s clock is ticking, there’s no huge problem to figure out before someone gets dragged to hell or goes crazy, everyone’s soul is (mostly) in tact, so if there would ever be a time to crave it, want it back, it would be now. The Bunker gets cold at night, and Sam had enjoyed the, the physical stuff, he’s a guy, of course he did, but he misses the heat of his brother’s body, the security, the way they both knew each other’s tells when a nightmare was forming, so they could shake each other out of it in the dead of night before it got really ugly.

Sam can’t, though. He can’t bring it up, because as he’s told Dean a thousand times: hope is kind of the whole point. He can always hope that today might be the day Dean comes to him, tonight might be the night Dean can't take the tension that sparks between them like dry kindling and presses him up against the kitchen counter, the bookshelves in the library, his own mattress. If Sam can keep that hope alive, he always has something to look forward to, some trace of happiness left for him in the distance, and if he asks Dean and he says no, looks disgusted, says _we were just a coupl’a scared kids, Sammy, thought we grew outta that ages ago_ or even worse, Dean _leaves_ because he thinks he’s hurting Sam by not being able to give Sam something he wants so badly sometimes he lies awake, aching for it, for that hot breath in his ear, the taste of Dean in his mouth, that first burning stretch and the subsequent fullness, feeling of being one, connected–

Well, that can’t happen, is the point.

“Do you wanna,” Sam starts, drawing back his covers to get up, but the weirdest thing happens, because Sam doesn’t even finish his sentence before Dean moves into his room, breathing yes in this way that makes Sam’s ears flush, “go drink a nightcap?”

Dean stops dead, like he hits a wall. Sam holds his breath, because something just shifted, and he’s not– he doesn’t know what. Did Dean– did Dean think Sam was pulling his covers back in, in invitation, and the– the way he said yes, like he’d been holding that word in on a breath underwater for four whole minutes, gasping it as he breached the surface once more–

“Oh,” Dean clears his throat. “Um. Yes, yeah. Always down for some scotch, man. That’d, that’d be awesome.”

Sam nods, but his heart is still in his throat, pounding madly against his Adam’s apple, making it difficult to swallow. He pulls his covers back the rest of the way, watching Dean watch him out of the corner of his eye, the way Dean’s eyes trail up the sliver of skin exposed between the top of his sleep pants and bottom of his sleep shirt, the bare feet he stuffs into his house shoes, and the way his eyes follow Sam all the way up until he’s standing, like he’s making sure Sam is steady, all there. It’s a pretty typical Dean-check, but there’s something different about it, a little frisson, a little heat.

Sam nods for Dean to lead the way, and a couple minutes later they’re sitting side-by-side in the dimmed library, only one lamplight on so they don’t spill anything. Otherwise, the dimness is calming Sam’s nerves, and he thinks Dean left the lights off on purpose so Sam won’t see Dean’s flush, but he can tell it’s there by the jerky, twitchy way Dean keeps moving in his chair.

“Wanna talk about it?” Sam offers, his voice whiskey-burn low. “About what’s keeping you up? ‘S your head okay?”

Dean touches the bandage on his forehead absently. “Yeah, I mean. For the most part. Got the world’s worst headache, but. Those women really saved our asses.”

Sam grins. “Eileen texted me a couple hours ago. Told her I wanted to relearn sign language, because I was,” Sam laughs to himself, and Dean smiles just because Sam is happy, before he even knows why, “I took some at Stanford,” and it’s a mark of how far they’ve come, how old and content they are that Dean doesn’t even flinch at the name of his former school anymore, doesn’t scowl, just nods.

“Yeah?” Dean asks, throwing back the rest of his scotch, then leaning forward to pour a couple more inches into his glass. “Always been good with your hands, Sammy.”

Sam kicks Dean in the shin because if he reacts in any other way, any other way that’s not little brother petulance, he thinks he might just crawl into Dean’s lap, remind him once and for all just what Sam can do with his hands.

“You’re an idiot,” Sam grins. “Anyway, I tried to say thank you, which is this,” Sam taps his chin with the tip of his fingers, “but I actually said fuck you, which is this,” and draws his fingers along the underside of his chin.

Dean smiles, eyes crinkling together in the corners in the way they only do if he’s truly amused, truly happy. “Ah, Sammy. It’s the thought that counts.”

“They were something, huh?” Sam comments after a moment of comfortable silence, concentrating on the feel of Dean’s warm, cotton-covered knee pressed against the outside of Sam’s thigh, with the way Dean’s body is always turned towards Sam.

“Hmm?” Dean hums, apparently lost in his own thoughts, and Sam wonders for the millionth time what his brother is thinking. Most of the time, when it’s truly important, he can read Dean like his favorite book, spine cracked open with love, all the words familiar and looked over time and again. But sometimes, Dean gets lost up there, and Sam, always the little brother toddling after him, wants to follow him, hoping vainly that he doesn’t have to; that he’s already in there, in Dean’s deepest secrets.

“Mildred and Eileen,” Sam murmurs, pressing his thigh tighter against Dean’s knee. He can feel the blood pounding against the pressure, can imagine the white spot blooming on his leg, all those places inside him making room for Dean’s presence there, just like always. “We meet a lot of people, you know, with what we do. I used to,” he clears his throat, about to give up a secret, but it feels okay, it doesn’t feel like he’s giving any part of himself up, only sharing, “I used to keep a ledger, write down every name of the people we saved. And the people we couldn’t.”

Dean looks over at him, his clear green eyes shutting and opening rapidly as he blinks back into the conversation. “I know, Sam.”

Sam cocks his head before taking the last swallow of his drink, feeling loose and warm, a little buzzed, but mainly just ready for sleep. “You do?”

Dean smiles at him, ducking his head in that shy way he gets when he’s about to say something important, something that will matter to Sam. “I know everything about you, kiddo.”

Sam mulls over that, moving his leg back and forth so it knocks against Dean’s knee rhythmically. He trails a long finger over the rim of his glass, smirking at Dean’s expression of annoyance as he starts to really bang his thigh against his brother’s bad knee.

“All right,” Dean gripes, grabbing at Sam’s thigh so hard he can see the way Dean’s veins pop out, knuckles going white. It hurts, distantly, like it should, big brother warning the little brother to knock off the bratty behavior, but he’s wired all wrong, because all the touch does is making him want more.

“No, you don’t,” Sam tells him finally, watching Dean’s hand slowly leave his thigh, like he’s just as reticent to let go as Sam is to have his touch leave. He holds back a shiver at the soft final brush of his brother’s fingers against the soft, vulnerable place of his inner thigh. “You don’t know everything.”

Dean’s eyes shoot up in surprise, then his expression goes guarded in the way that Sam knows how to read: he’s just hurt Dean by saying that, but Sam didn’t mean it to. He didn’t mean it that way.

“Thought we were done keepin’ secrets,” Dean mumbles, taking his own last swig before thumping the glass down a little rough against the table.

Sam chuckles, a little bitterly, because he knows Dean is keeping something pretty big from him right now, and isn’t it just so ironic and like Dean to be all indignant over something Sam’s doing, when Dean is doing the same thing.

“I’m going to bed,” Sam says, their soft moment inter-layered with bitterness now, and the whiskey at the back of his throat doesn’t taste so comforting now. He pushes back from the table, unfolding his long legs to stumble themselves back to his room, where he can stew in the dark until he falls asleep. He’s pissed off Dean got him up just to end up getting angry.

Dean stops him with a touch, fingers wrapped around Sam’s delicate wrist. Sam stops, closing his eyes, but it’s not a demanding touch, not forcing him to sit back down– it’s pleading, asking him to stay for just one more second.

“I _will_ tell you,” Dean says quietly, fingers trailing down Sam’s wrist to wrap up in Sam’s own. Dean squeezes them briefly. “I’ll tell you as soon as I’ve worked it all out, okay? I promise, Sam. Just give me some time.”

“It’s okay to keep secrets,” Sam murmurs finally, squeezing Dean’s fingers back. “It doesn’t always have to be an ugly word. I don’t have to know everything. I just…” He gnaws on his lip, “I just want to. I want you to be able to come to me. But I know it’s hard for you, Dean. I accepted that years ago. Just please– don’t keep anything a secret that burdens you, when it might be something I can help you carry.”

Dean looks up at him, really looks, nodding. He releases Sam’s fingers finally, dropping his hand back down to the table.

“You should get some sleep,” Sam tells him, unable to leave the hunched-over, vulnerable looking body possessing the other half of his soul. “Everything is scarier in the dark.”

Dean huffs, a bitter noise, kind of a laugh, mostly a scoff. He’s still facing away from Sam, head ducked down, looking at his wide hands. “You’re not. You’re not, Sam.”

It all clicks, finally, in Sam’s sometimes slow brain. He’s really, really smart, he knows, but when it comes to his brother, when it comes to things he’s insecure about– like how Dean feels, and how much Sam wants Dean to feel, he’s slow on the uptake, and he doesn’t always get it right on the first try, truly listening to what Dean is telling him.

But he gets it now.

He puts a wide palm against the nape of his brother’s neck, curling his thumb behind his ear, rubbing at the baby-soft hair there. “Then come on,” he whispers, and Dean’s whole body sags with relief.

“Sam–”

“Come on, Dean,” he repeats, firmly. “I’ll meet you there.” He thinks Dean needs some time to think this through, prime himself for sharing a bed with the love of his life for the first time in over half a decade.

Sam certainly does. He turns down the hallway to Dean’s room, smiling at the thought that he’ll finally get to try out the memory foam Dean hasn’t stopped needling Sam to get for himself. He grabs an extra pillow from one of the spare rooms, then pads softly into his big brother’s bedroom. Despite the cold of the stone walls underground, the way it always kind of smells metallic in this place, it’s warm in this room, and it smells mostly like his brother.

Sam makes himself comfortable, groaning in relief when his back hits the memory foam. Oh god, it is magical, and he hopes, by morning, it’ll remember him, too.

Dean shows up a few minutes later, and Sam closes his eyes against the way the door sounds when Dean pulls it closed. It feels important, like Dean is cutting them off from the rest of the world, that this, here, is between them, is for them, and no one else.

“You’re on my side, bitch,” Dean grumbles, getting in on the side Sam has clearly taken, and he’s not too happy about being shuffled out of the warm spot.

“You sleep alone,” Sam scoffs, but scoots obligingly, “there is no side.”

Dean mocks him under his breath, and then they fall quiet, two overgrown men sharing a small bed, lying on their backs, terrified to touch but not having much choice.

“C’mon,” Dean murmurs finally, and Sam sighs in relief, immediately rolling to his side so Dean can snug up against his back, the way they’ve shared a bed any time they’d had to (or chose to) their entire lives. Dean flings an arm over Sam’s waist, pulling him in closer, and he buries his nose into the nape of Sam’s neck.

Sam’s heart is pounding so hard he feels like it’s about to pop out of his chest, just fall right out and land in Dean’s hand, where it’s always been held, sometimes carelessly, sometimes graciously, but always with love.

“Calm down,” Dean murmurs against his neck, his breath whiskey-burnt warm and familiar, and Sam can feel the weight, the heft of Dean pressed in a line against his ass. He shifts his hips slightly, strictly Pavlovian at this point, but it makes Dean suck in a breath. “Calm down, Sam. It’s just me.”

Even though he said not ten minutes ago that everything is scarier in the dark, it makes him brave, too– he’s facing away from Dean, and it’s dark, and the door is closed, and it’s Dean, it’s just Dean, and that–

“That’s,” Sam whispers, “that’s the problem. Not the problem. The reason. Dean.”

Dean huffs out another short breath against his neck, and then his lips are lightly, but with intent, with purpose, pressing themselves down the long column of bare skin. Sam shivers, rolling his hips back into his brother’s half-hard cock.

“Sammy,” Dean moans, his voice all torn up and open, like it’s the only word he knows how to say, the only one he cares to say.

“I,” Sam starts, eyes closed firmly, emotion threatening to leak out of them at the feel of his brother’s firm, lush mouth dragging over his shoulder now, moving the shirt to the side with the tip of his nose, “I’ve missed you. So much.”

“Been right here,” Dean breathes, his tongue sneaking out to catch some of the sweat building on Sam’s skin. “Right here, baby. I, you– you have to know how much. How much that I,” and he can’t seem to go on, words getting stuck in his vocal chords, like the weight of them is holding those bands strung tight.

“Dean,” he says his brother’s name again, because it’s his favorite word, and he’s so happy to be saying it again like this, in this way, aching and tight, and loving him so much.

“How much I’m yours,” Dean finishes finally, his hand sneaking up Sam’s shirt to rub at Sam’s strong stomach. “And that all you’d ever have to do is ask. Can’t never tell you no. Hardly been a time I’ve wanted to. It’s always yes with you, Sam. And I’ve been right here.”

“No,” Sam argues, shaking his head, “not where I’ve wanted you to be. You haven’t been there. Not in so long. Feels like, feels like forever.”

“Tell me where. Show me. Anywhere, I’ll be there,” Dean promises, his mouth closer and closer, and Sam turns his head to meet him.

Their mouths melt together so good that Sam groans low in his throat, and it rattles his teeth. Dean keeps it slow, sweet, but deep, opening his mouth to suck in Sam’s top lip, then bottom, keeping his lips plush and wet, and Sam surges forward, just a little, to suck Dean’s bottom lip right back up into his own mouth.

“Here,” Sam pants against Dean’s mouth, their lips sticking together with the tackiness of their spit. “Right here.” 

Dean groans, rolling Sam to his back as he lays half on top of him, pressing their bodies into the mattress. Dean’s always been better with actions than words, and Sam knows that Dean wants him here, now, forever, remembered by the imprint of his body in his bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought. Thanks for sticking with me. Love y'all. xoxoxo


End file.
